Time and again, I felt unheard or unseen. 

Somehow, my message did not land. People did not get me. 

I thought I was very clear, yet people turned away from me, or stepped over my boundaries. 

At first, I blamed the world. Thought I was just too special to be understood. 

Then, I blamed myself: I tried to get louder, more eloquent, present, or aggressive. All to no avail. 

A breakthrough came when I discovered the world’s oldest language seven years ago.

The World’s Oldest Language

Humans across all corners of the earth share a common language. 

This language is older than Latin, more widespread than English. It evokes as many emotions as a Shakespeare play or Rumi poem. Babies intuitively understand it. We are all moved by it. It surrounds us. And most people I know experience joy being talked to via this language. This universal language is music. And today, we consume music mainly as songs. 

A song is communication between producer and listener. 

Each song carries a message, tells a story, expresses the artist’s inner world, and filters through the listener’s inner world.

Making a song involves different stages. 

First, the artist gathers her sonic elements and designs them to taste. Here she discriminates against thousands of options by choosing only a few. Next, the chosen elements are recorded. Then the artist arranges the elements to tell her story. Here she considers factors such as tension, release, and intensity. The listener has to be kept engaged and interested. 

Once the song is arranged, the hardest work begins.

Before mastering, exporting, and releasing a finished song, the music producer spends weeks mixing her work. 

Mixing music is a subtle, nitty-gritty science. A great mix separates a pro from an amateur. 

It can make the final difference between a global chart-topper and a mere top twenty. 

There are different mixing philosophies, but one underlying truth:

Mixing is all about maximising musical impact.

When I dipped my toes into the world of music production seven years ago, I finished my first song after a month. When I got to the mixing stage, I hit a wall. I just couldn’t make my lead sound stand out the way I wanted.

I tried a whole bunch of seemingly logical things:

• I made it louder, but that distorted the whole song. 

• I double-layered it with another instrument, but that redlined the volume 

• I threw more effects on it, but that changed the feel. 

• I made it more complex, but that altered the message. 

After two weeks, I was ready to throw in the towel. Nothing worked. This is insane. 

As a last resort, I consulted my friend Patrick. 

He’s a seasoned music producer with more than twenty years of production experience under his belt.

He listened, laughed, and said: “To make this element stand out, you have to turn down the rest.”

It’s not about adding more, but leaving out. 

The Subtle Art of Subtraction

To my surprise, the difference was staggering and immediately audible. 

The problem was not my lead element. It was the noise and unwanted frequencies from the other elements. 

Patrick said:

“Mixing is always about cutting and subtracting. This is counterintuitive, as we are all used to adding more stuff on top. But that just waters down our message. Cut all that’s not essential to make the essential ring through.”

It is through diligent elimination that the core message comes through and is heard by millions. 

Of course, my first song was heard by not more than a hundred people, but I learned a key lesson.

Leave out all that’s not essential to make space for the essential.

The same principles apply to our daily communication.

How to allow the world to hear you

Rarely, we need to say, elaborate, or explain more. We don’t need new tricks.

The key to being heard is to tune down the noise and cut out the distractions to our core message.

As a rule of thumb, if you force someone to figure you out, they lose interest.

Of course, you have to know what you actually want to say. If you don’t, how about some silence?

If you do know what your message is, eliminate the puffery, vagueness, and mystery. 

Say: “I love you.”

Don’t say: “Whenever I am with you I feel like, you know, just very special and we are just clicking and I have rarely felt this way with someone else and I often think about you for hours after we parted but then I tell myself to relax.”

Say: “I want to go eat ice cream. Are you coming with?” 

Don’t say: “It’s so warm outside today, right? God. Shouldn't we go for a walk? Hey, there’s that new ice cream place!”

Say: “I don’t agree.” 

Don’t say: “I recently read this new article and the writer proposed that we, as humans, should not do such and such. After all, we all should value this much more. I can send you the article, if you want to.”

Say: “I am angry at you, Marvin, for what you suggest here.”

Don’t say: Yeah, but, there is this 18th century philosopher who really thought about this for fifty years and he developed these categories for people and you don’t seem to understand the subtle differences between humans.

In short, cut the noise, say what you mean, pause, and listen for how your sentence lands. 

The mix of your life’s symphony will be clearer, cleaner and better heard. People hear what you have to say and actively listen. You will be more in tune with the world if you get direct.

Warning: This direct way of talking very likely leads to enhanced sensations in your body. 

Be prepared to feel more and have more time and energy for important things in your life.